


Rapunzel doesn't let her hair down

by DarkYugiBoy



Category: Tangled (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Depressing, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:52:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25610113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkYugiBoy/pseuds/DarkYugiBoy
Summary: Just a short idea: what if Rapunzel never going on her adventure in Tangled? Starting with a short rewrite of the opening scenes between Mother Gothel and Rapunzel.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Rapunzel doesn't let her hair down

"Oh, Rapunzel!" her mother's voice sang, slightly far away, "let down your hair!"

"Coming mother."

She was determined; Rapunzel was going to ask her mother today for the thing she dreamed of most. She daydreamed a moment, and almost forgot to let Mother up. She sprinted to the sole window in the tower to let down her incredible hair. Over a small hook, the hair tumbled long to the ground, where her mother could hold on and Rapunzel could winch her up. It was as strong as rope, as golden as the sun, as beautiful and mysterious as a lost flower. 

"Rapunzel!" her mother drawled as she finally reached the top of the tower, and stepped through the window, "Oh, dear, I don't know how you manage to pull me up every single day. Oh, wonderful."

"Oh, it's, ahem, no effort, really."

"Then I don't know why it takes so long!" she sang, grabbing Rapunzel's cheek, "Just teasing! Look, I brought back parsnips. We'll have hazelnut soup, I know it's your favourite!"

"Listen mother - "

"Rapunzel, mumsy's feeling a little off - would you sing for her?"

"Oh - of course."

Mother sat at a wooden chair, picking up a portion of Rapunzel's hair that seemed to flow everywhere in the spacious yet still small tower room, as Rapunzel sat on the floor and started to sing:

_"Flower gleam and glow  
Let your power shine  
Make the clock reverse  
Bring back what once was mine"_

Her hair started to glow - starting from the scalp, the hair glowed like the sun (though it was cool to the touch, and soothing and lusciously smooth to hold). The glow flowed down and snaked around the room, until it eventually reached the portion Mother held.

 _"Heal what has been hurt"_ And Mother's face seemed to become a little smoother, a faint wrinkle or two smooth out, a touch of grey at the temples colour in jet black.  
_"Change the Fates' design"_ Rapunzel, impatient, started singing quickly. It made Mother cling to the glowing hair anxiously whilst the song still lasted. Wrinkles in her face were still smoothing out.  
_"Save what has been lost  
Bring back what once was mine"_

"Okay, so mom, listen - tomorrow is, you know, kind of a huge day for me - don't know if you've been counting or anything, but it's going to be my 18th birthday."

"Is it really? You know, after a certain age, you really don't need any more birthdays. Why not just do away with the whole celebrations this year? Only teasing dear, of course I hadn't forgotten! Why do you think I got the parsnips, for my special wittle girl!"

"Huh - yes. Parsnips! Oh, mother, no - please, I want... I want to go see the lights!"

"You mean the stars?"

"I don't think that's what they are, mother." 

Rapunzel had painted all the walls in this tower room; the domed ceiling looked like the sky at night, as though there was no ceiling to this small room. All the positions of the stars were mapped out. And in a small corner of the room, was a painting. It was hidden, as though Rapunzel had been keeping it secret from Mother or maybe even herself, out of some reason of shame or something she couldn't understand. The painting showed not stars, but a haze of floating lights. They were more rectangular than the small pinpricks of the stars on the ceiling, and more huddled together.

Rapunzel stood next to the painting, looking up at the lights on the wall. "I don't know what they are. But I want to see them for real, Mother. I don't know what it is about them - but they always appear on my birthday - every year, always. Couldn't we go? You could take me? ...Please?"

Her mother didn't speak for almost a full minute. It didn't look like she was thinking it over. 

"I thought we had discussed this - dear," she whispered "NEVER... never again ask to leave this tower."

"Mother..."

"NO! I forbi-"

"But-"

"Young lady, go to your room!"

"...erm,"

"Oh, silly. You already are in your room. Oh, I can't stay mad Rapunzel - especially when I haven't done anything wrong. Ah, well."

"Actually, mother..."

"Yes? What?"

"I was just going to say... actually, you're right. And I've thought of a better present. Much better. You could maybe get me some new paint - the one made from the white shells you brought me once. They make the flowers really stand out."

"Well, that is a very long journey for me. Why, all in all probably three days." 

"I just thought it was maybe a better idea than the lights?"

"Oh, you're absolutely right." She dropped off the basket of parsnips with Rapunzel. "And then you can paint something lovely over that mural of all those silly stars."

Rapunzel winched her hair over the hook by the tower window and, through years of practice, gently lowered Mother down to the ground, who waved cheerfully and fled into the forest. She shrank and then disappeared into the trees and then Rapunzel was looking at nobody. Just a lonely landscape that was waiting to be explored. She skipped away from the window, and sang. 

"Ok..." she breathed coolly, "She's gone. Three days. Plenty of time. Oh, I can't believe I'm about to do this! Oh, I can't do this! Oh, I'm doing this!" She hadn't moved. "Why am I not doing this?"

A little chameleon called Pascal who visited the tower often seemed to give Rapunzel a look of raised eyebrows. 

"Oh, don't be like that, Pascal. I'm going. But first, there's so many preparations that need to be made. Right? It's a big scary world out there, Mother always says. And Mother does know best... though, I mean... I mean I mean... like... does she?" she winced. Pascal definitely thought Mother didn't. He'd be surprised if she knew anything. 

"So rude" she smirked, and went off singing.

************

Rapunzel planned to leave the tower that afternoon. She packed a bag and got everything ready for the big change. Pascal took a miniature picnic basket she had made for him once - he had hated it when she made it, because she thought he looked adorable - and filled it with his own supplies. He gave a big thumbs up, and Rapunzel got the courage to lower her hair and winch herself down to the ground.

_"Look at the world - so close, and I'm halfway to it!  
Look at it all - so big - do I even dare?  
Look at me - there at last! - I just have to do it_

_Should I?  
No.  
Here I go..."_

And she loved it! 

_Just smell the grass! The dirt! Just like I dreamed they'd be!  
Just feel that summer breeze - the way it's calling me  
For like the first time ever, I'm completely free!  
I could go running  
And racing  
And dancing  
And chasing  
And leaping  
And bounding  
Hair flying  
Heart pounding  
And splashing  
And reeling  
And finally feeling  
That's when my life begins!_

Rapunzel never met Flynn Rider. Instead, with no-one to guide her, she first followed the path she had watched Mother take a thousand times, out through the vines... but past that, where? 

It was miles of forest. She was excited to be out here, but nervous. So very nervous to go in any direction. She shouldn't even be out here. What would Mother say? Her hair caught and snagged on a branch, and she screamed before seeing what had happened. She nervously untangled her hair, looking around for ruffians or villains. It was a lot to take in. Almost too much. She'd wandered for over an hour now and everything looked the same. 

And then Mother appeared. Almost as if she had expected to find Rapunzel out here, or suspected there was a chance. How had she found her out here, in the middle of nowhere? Rapunzel felt only shame and doubt. Why had she even wanted to see the lights? It wasn't that important. Mother knew best. 

They went back, and Mother was gentle enough after her telling off. They had a tough time getting back into the tower but found a way. After that, Mother blocked up the window with a dirty glass frame. It was pretty - thick, swirling glass - but opaque, the world dimmed and the light from outside dullened. When the floating lights came a few days later, Mother asleep, Rapunzel didn't want to look. She'd been sitting in a corner by herself for a few days. Just sitting and letting the time go by. Nothing seemed very important anymore. Pascal reminded her as the floating lights filled the night sky and she brushed her sniffling nose and pulled herself up to the window. It was so thick and gloomy through the glass. She could see it was dark, and see there was orange light in the sky - through the glass the pinpricks of the floating lanterns were more blurred into one another and hard to make out. She sighed and turned away, and lowered herself into a corner again, holding herself. It wasn't so bad in here. Nobody needed to go outside. 

Pascal hated seeing Rapunzel like this. He looked out the window best he could, squinting as though that might help see better. He leapt down with a squeak and climbed up the bannisters to the top of the tower and squeaked again for Rapunzel's attention. She looked up to see him pointing at the observatory window - the panel that opened up into a look at the night sky and stars. 

"What's the use, Pascal?" she turned away, "We'll never see those lights. It's just stars." And she said it very quietly. 

He wanted to give up too. But he didn't; and with all his might he tugged and wrestled with the latch on the panel. 

"Pascal..." Rapunzel started. She watched him struggle. She watched him and did nothing. She wasn't helping. "Oh, I'm sorry Pascal." He kept wrestling. "Wait..." He fell from the ceiling, not getting the latch, not catching a bannister as he fell. 

"Got you." She had leant out and caught him before he hit the ground. "I've got you, Pascal. I'm so sorry." He nestled against her. "I love you. Thank you for being there." Pascal smiled and looked at her - and then rolled his eyes, and gestured back to the observatory again. 

"Oh - yes." With a flick of her hair, she caught the latch and pulled it open. The open night sky, inky black, and the stars, pinpricks of light... and floating orange lights, drifting by. Overhead. 

"Look Pascal! The floating lights! Oh my goodness, I can't believe it! Look at them, Pascal."  
Pascal had settled into her shoulder with a sigh and stared up at the night sky. Rapunzel was grinning. There was her dream, floating by. Maybe she'd never see them for real, but it wasn't dead. She'd live on that dream. 

6 years later, she had still never left the tower - not since her brief adventure. 

_"It's the girl who's still looking for adventure  
A world that's so close, and far away  
Blurred through stained glass - look, there at last!  
Me, in the world, just a young girl"_

With the healing incantation of her hair, Rapunzel never aged past 18. But she's felt the time go past. She still wants to leave and go on that adventure - but Mother hasn't changed in all these years, and how could she leave and come back after her last betrayal?

_"Men laugh, and girls dance  
Kids race, and dogs chase  
Don't look away, just one more day, okay  
And I'll be just a girl in this wide world"_

_"There's me... in the corner of the crowd  
Eyes tied shut - all the voices so loud.  
Years pass by, as I stay by the side  
Waiting and wasting all this time"_

_"One day, I still dream  
I'll join their melody  
Reverse the clock's flow  
Flower gleam and glow  
Don't let this ageing show  
My dream, postponed  
And now I know  
Mother will never let me go"_

> (I don't know how Rapunzel can now fin the courage to follow her dreams in this new situation, but I hope she does, and I hope it isn't too late).


End file.
